ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES FOR PUBLISHING (I)

"Paper's contribution to a landfill's contents has remained relatively even, at well over 40 percent...newspapers alone may take up some 13 percent or more of the space in the average landfill...(since 1960) the volume of discarded magazines has doubled to 1.2 percent."

"Paper and many other organics...tend not so much to degrade in landfills as to mummify. They do not, in other words, take up appreciably less space as time goes by."

"(P)ublishing is not what you'd call a very environmentally friendly industry. Considering the paper on which we print, the inks we use, the photographic processes we apply to generate films and plates, the junk mail we send to promote and bill...the conventional method of applying ink to paper to produce a product is antithetical to a true green ethic."

"A magazine--once it's read and disposed of--is nothing more than a big bundle of chemically coated paper that has to be either burned or buried...Recent studies show that magazines contribute up to 6.3 percent of the solid paper waste found in our nation's landfills."

"One area of the publishing business that loads up the landfills...(is) newsstand sales...the average sell- through on the newsstand for a special-interest consumer magazine is about 38 percent. This means that for every 100,000 copies distributed, 62,000 are thrown away without anyone ever reading them."

Though glossy paper is recyclable...only about two- thirds of it is paper. Clay and fillers make up the rest...adhesives used for binding and inserts...are hard to break down in the recycling process...Cover coatings, used to protect and increase the gloss of many magazine covers, are difficult or impossible to recycle."

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